


I'm Already Broken

by RaySimp



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Teen Titans - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Damian Wayne-centric, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, I keep hurting Damian, Scarecrow's Fear Toxin (DCU), but not majorly, im sorry, the others are in it too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-15 20:34:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18676936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaySimp/pseuds/RaySimp
Summary: When Batman and Batgirl are off of the Gotham rotation, Robin and Spoiler have to step up.But, out of everyone, why did it have to be Scarecrow?





	I'm Already Broken

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cdelphiki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cdelphiki/gifts).



> And a HHHUUUUUGGGGGEEEEEE shoutout for the beta reader Cdelphiki !!! They dealt with all the mistakes for the first draft and pitched in some amazing ideas too! They are an incredible beta, writer, and person to talk with!!! So if you have not heard of them or read anything by them, you are TOTALLY missing out on some AMAZING fics!!   
> (I know, “Raye, what’s with all the caps?” THEY ARE JUST SO NICE AND AMAZING. I JUST- I JUST LOVE THEM, OKAY?)

Robin was rarely called into Gotham anymore after starting his new Teen Titians team in Brooklynn.  So, when Batman called Damian to go on regular patrol in his city, he was a little worried. But while Robin was investing somethings that Emiko needed to look into for some of the Titans’ upcoming missions a few days ago, Batman broke his ankle while fighting Killer Crock and Batgirl got a major concussion after Harley Quinn knocked her out a couple of days after Bruce was put on medical rest. That led to Robin patrolling Gotham with the help of Spoiler and technical support of Oracle for a week, starting Saturday night.

“Oracle, send an anonymous tip to the GCPD on the corner of 15th and Carter street,” Robin reported as he tied up an unconscious man that Robin found, assaulting a teenager, then he turned toward the victim and asked softly, “Are you alright?”

The teen was shaking but tried to pull himself together and nodded slightly.

“The police are on their way. You can either stay here or head to the police station that is five blocks down,” Robin said slowly, knowing the victim was trying to process what he was saying. The teen nodded his head again, then slowly slides down the wall he was leaning on. As Robin grappled up to the roof his mask blinded him with an alert of Scarecrow and Poison Ivy escaping Arkham.

Then he heard over the open comm line, “Oh _shit_.” Robin just grunted in agreement.

 

* * *

 

However, nothing happened over the next couple of days. From experience, that usually meant disaster was about to strike. Which is exactly what happened on Thursday as Scarecrow was reported raiding a chemical facility earlier in the day and Robinson Park was growing unnaturally quick during the last couple of hours.

“Robin, Spoiler, head to the cave, we will come up with a plan here,” Batman commands over the comms from the cave.

“On my way B-man. Besides, I have a class tomorrow and need sleep,” Spoiler pipes up, jumping on her cycle and enters a secret passage that leads to the cave.

“ETA ten minutes,” Robin reports, adjusting his grapple to swing towards his own cycle.

“Looks like I’ll beat you there, D, I’m in the tunnels.” Steph says. Robin acknowledges her with an uninterested grunt and begins to pull out of an alley.

“Hold on…,” Oracle pipes up, “I’ve caught Scarecrow down at the Dixon Docks in Chinatown, Robin, head there. Spoiler, Ivy was seen at Gotham’s Natural Museum in the Burnley district. We can coordinate plans while you two head to your new locations.”

“There goes my precious four hours,” Spoiler grumbles.

“Damian, I’ll head down there soon, Scarecrow is not to be taken lightly—” Bruce was saying before Damian cut him off.

“You have not finished healing, Father, and, as much as I find it ironic, you will not be in the field till Dr. Tompkins and Penny-One approve of this move. You being in the field would be more of a hindrance than any help. Do not worry, I will use caution. We do need a plan; however, and that is paramount for any successful mission.”

Oracle jumps into the conversation by adding, “I just got intercepted a 911 call saying that a few men in ‘potato sack masks’ abducted a group of people from Cameron Street.”

“Hack the cameras, Oracle, I want numbers and names; how many people were taken, who they are, and how many perpetrators. See if they lead us to Crane’s location by tracking the hostages’ phones or other devices, or if they put the hostages somewhere else. Maybe Crane is trying to fool us by driving to a different location,” Bruce demands gruffly. “Spoiler any…”

Robin tuned out the conversation as he as he was driving to the docks. As he pulls up to the waterfront warehouse area, he waits for Spoiler to finish her report of the museum, finding nothing amiss there, Robin reports quietly, “I am here, have you figured out a certain warehouse or a group at least?”

“Close, Robin, I’m almost…,” Oracle trails off, the sound of keys clacking rang through, “Got it, the fifth warehouse on your left. I’m pulling up blueprints now.”

Robin starts sneaking over toward the appropriate building, looking through windows on the bottom floors while Oracle begins to hack to find the correct blueprints, “Okay… okay... ah-ha. The building was built with two floors, first floor has no rooms, just a place to stock over-produced goods and the second just a perimeter catwalk with a room at the opposite side of the entry doors. There are ten hostages, three women, four children, and three men. Looks like at least eight muscle-for-hires, I can’t do a facial recognition search of them because of the masks but most have a heavy build body type.”

Robin takes all of this into consideration when he looks into the window of the first floor, “The hostages are bound, gagged, and spread into three different groups, each group has a man, woman, and child. The groups are separated by metal containers or wooden crates, I do not have visual conformation on the last child. I can see five of Scarecrow’s thugs. I’m going to draw their attention towards the alley behind the warehouse and take them down. Hopefully that will spark majority of the hostages to get out while they can.”

Once Batman gives his approval, Robin slowly made his way towards the back doorway, picking up a dark-colored glass bottle along the way, and entering the building. The door closes loudly then after a couple of seconds he throws the alcohol-scented bottle- smashing it against the wall gaining the attention of the closest guards to the back of the building.

“What the hell is that?” Robin hears, most likely coming from the guard closest to the hostages.

“How am I suppose to know? I don’t have x-ray vison.”

“Don’t talk to me like that, idiot.”

“Excuse me—”

“Hey! Knock it off you two, it’s probably a local drunk. You four, go check it out. Report in when you know.”

The henchmen are dressed in all black and have burlap masks around their eyes, all different ethnicities, but their builds are similar to each other. When they reach the end of the warehouse they spread out. The two closest thugs to him, Robin puts in a headlock and holds tightly until they go limp and drags them behind a large crate and ties their hands together. The third one is drawing closer and Robin walks behind him, picking up a metal pipe that was sticking out a crate, and hits him across the head- enough to knock out, then ties him as well. Which leaves the last one—

“Hey!”

_Shit._

The last thug saw him and reaches for his radio, but Robin grabs the gun that is in face and breaks the hand and pistol whips him across the head.

“Peter? What happened?”

Robin quickly hides in the shadows of a metal container by the time another goon shows up, which Robin jumps behind him and puts him the same headlock, slightly trickier than the first one but he still passes out. After tying the two men together, Robin makes his way to the catwalk silently walking across till he is as close as he can to the remaining gunman around the hostages.

“What is taking them so long?” the lone criminal asks himself angrily, then into the radio, “What’s happening? Report in!”

“Your associates will not be contacting you anytime soon.” Robin makes his presence known, making the other male turn quickly and aiming his weapon at the costumed hero. In turn Robin throws himself off the catwalk and lands on the man’s shoulders and knocks him out with a well place nerve strike, making the thug slump to the ground.

Robin runs to the closest group of hostages, pulling a knife out to cut into the ropes of the closest adults, an African-American man in his early thirties and a Latina woman in her late twenties. Once he reaches the group, he begins to inform them, “The criminals on this floor are gone, and the other ones are most likely upstairs. I am going to cut you out of your bounds, then you need to help the others out and contact the police. Do you understand?” They both nod quickly and Robin walks to the man’s back, noticing his hands are shaking, “Please try to keep your hands as still as possible, this knife is quite sharp,” Robin says softly, placing his hand on the man’s shoulder.

After the man’s hands slow, he cuts off the rope and repeats the process to the woman while the man unties the pale skin child, “Though I have taken care of the criminals on this level, please do not make more noise than necessary, there is a child unaccounted for and I need to save them.”

The woman speaks up hesitantly, “The criminals grabbed too many kids, according to Scarecrow, so he took her up there,” she points to the offices upstairs.

Robin bristles silently at the information but quits when he looks at the woman, “Thank you for the information.”

The child the man just finished untying, runs to Robin legs and grasps his shirt crying out, “She is my sister! Her name is Opal! You have to save her!”

Robin kneels to reach the child and shushes him, “I am going to try my best, but in order to do that I need everyone out of the building, that includes you, your sister, and everyone else here.” The child nods then begins to walk towards the adults and follows them to the other groups.

Robin starts up the stairs swiftly and silently. “Oracle, I have secured all but one of the hostages. Six men are unconscious, leaving at least two more and Scarecrow.”

“Okay, Robin. I’ll have GCPD parked outside ready for pick up soon.”

“How are things with Poison Ivy?”

“Spoiler is taking care of it at the moment, pretty well. Only a few hiccups, but they smoothed out nicely. Ivy will need pick up soon as well.”

“Very well.”

Robin takes out the two gunmen guarding one of the doors hastily but noisily when one of them got a shot off into Robin’s arm. The sound of the gunshot causes Bruce to loudly worry over the comm device in his ear. Grunting in assurance, Robin engages grappling with the last thugs. He breaks one of older men’s arm and slams him into the wall. Then, he pushes the other one off the catwalk and bolas him while the thug was in mid-air.

The sleeve of his uniform is torn off and blood is leaking into his gauntlet, leaving a few inches of his brown skin vulnerable. Robin opens the office doors slightly taking note of the layout, three wooden desks are situated in the room, and each had one wooden chair in front and a swivel chair behind. The little girl, Opal, was seated on the chair in front of the desk that was opposite of the door, tied and gagged, but seemingly unharmed. He quickly rolls into the room, hiding underneath the closest desk and opens his comm for everyone to listen to Scarecrow’s plan. Then, as quietly as he can he sneaks over to Opal when Scarecrow isn’t looking and unties her hands and feet, then puts his index finger to his lips in a shushing gesture, then unties her gag.

Scarecrow, when threatened, was akin to a rabid dog- jumping at every noise and quick to act- needless to say, very dangerous. His gun was full of needles of fear toxin, aim jumping to all the shadows in the room. After Robin was finished untying the child, Scarecrow sing-songs “Robin, come out, come out wherever you are! Or this little one gets it.”

Robin stands up and walks forward into the light coming from the overhead bulb in the middle of the room, “What is your plan, Crane? Throwing Gotham into chaos and reign the madness? Or something even more asinine?”

“How dare you! My plan was marvelous! City wide madness is always a pleasure! But since you, bats, always seem to ruin it, let’s see what you your actions cost you!” Scarecrow cries as he pulls the trigger that is still pointing at the small child.

Robin shouts out a loud, “Run!” and without hesitation, jumps in front of Opal, the needle harmlessly hitting his armor plate, then bouncing off and landing on the floor. “I do not think I am the one needing to pay my dues, Crane,” Robin quips as he launches himself into an attack, causing Scarecrow to go on the defensive. He hears the door be thrown open and little feet make loud footfalls as she leaves the warehouse.

“Hold still, you little—”

“Shut up, Crane.”

After a few minutes of grappling with the madman, Robin has Crane on the ground. Robin attempts to nerve strike him, but Scarecrow dodges, swipes the fallen needle, jabs Robin in the hole of his uniform, and injects the toxin into Robin’s bloodstream. When Robin gives a short curse, Batman immediately demands for information, but Robin doesn’t have time and jumps away from the mad scientist’s hands as they go for a choke hold.

“Robin, what is happening?” Batman shouts into his ear, and Robin grunts while going back into the fight, not waiting for the illusions to take hold.

“Impossible! That was enough to get Batman weeping! So, how are you unaffected?!” Scarecrow cries as Robin throws a barge of punches at the scientist’s side. The comm unit in Robin’s ear goes silent, obviously the other people hearing Scarecrow’s meaning.

Robin jumps takes advantage of Scarecrow’s distracted mind and throws him to the wall and hogtying his feet and hands together.

Then the teen wobbly leans into Scarecrow’s face and coldly lets out, “I am living my greatest fear every damn day I wake up, Crane. Nothing you inject me with can be worse than my life.”

_Silence!_

The toxin is pumping through his veins as he pours out his soul unwillingly, “My team does not trust or like me. My other allies are either dead, moved on, or ignoring me. My best friend has suddenly aged and has not even bothered to talk to me. My grandfather just wants my body to possess.”

_The toxin! It’s the toxin!_

His eyes grow hazy and wide as his biggest secrets flow out of him. “My mother orchestrated my death to prove that my father does not care for me. One of my brothers betrayed me for his own gain with no reason that I can see. Another one is dead and… never cared for me—I will not have the opportunity to prove that I do ever again.”

_Oh please, make it stop! Just stop talking!_

His heart is pounding so loud in his ears. “My oldest brother does not remember me and therefore does not care for me. My father has shown multiple times that he does not have intention of being around or caring. Any other person I could count on in this city has shown their disinterest or disappointment in either myself or my actions.”

_Anything else! Anything else, but this! Please!_

He tries to stop the river of words, but he can’t. “But that, _that_ I can handle. The worst thing, _the worst thing_ is that I have brought this all upon myself. And I can _not_ seem to stop or change enough for people to stop hurting me, or leaving me behind. And your fear toxin cannot hold a candle to those feelings on its best day.”

_Leave! Leave now! Go anywhere else but here!_

Robin knocks out the scientist, stands up, throws open the office door, walks out. He reaches to his ear to open his comm, forgetting the device had been on the whole time, and when he remembers leaving the channel open, his heart plummets when he realizes that _everyone heard_.

Shaking his head, Robin forces himself to speak calmly into his still quiet comm unit, “Oracle, Scarecrow is apprehended and is waiting on GCPD pick up in the second-floor office in the warehouse. I am headed to the closest safehouse for a fear toxin antidote.”

His comm unit cracks to life as Barbara quietly confirms his request, then leaves him to his thoughts.

Unknown to him, was the sniffles coming from Spoiler while she finishes up with Poison Ivy.

The tears in Barbara’s eyes while leaving an anonymous tip for GCPD.

The broken china tea cup that Alfred was laying out for Bruce.

The dent in the consoles where Bruce’s hand was laying.

**Author's Note:**

> If you like tumblr, you can find me @rayesimp and @rayewriting !!  
> I love talking to people about anything!


End file.
